Twofer: Screeching Weasel x I Farm
Pop punk has gone through a wealth of changes since the Descendents and whoever else could be said to have informed the genre stalked the earth. Moving from something of an in-scene, underground phenomenon on the West Coast to an international movement of sorts is a pretty huge progression over the span of just thirty years.
With its commercial appeal, which is obviously relative, the genre’s gifted State’s side music fans a horde of groups to follow – including a few that seem to be aging surprisingly well. Regardless of that, a few of the progenitors are kicking around, or at least issuing retrospectives in order to spread the legacy. But in the mid nineties’ as popular music seemed poised to accommodate just about any variation on rock music, folks were blessed with the financial prowess to market and produce music in the same way major label bands were. That may or may not have been punk’s death rattle. But even if it was, there’re still folks working to keep the genre entertaining. If the music isn’t any longer appealing, at least that attitude is.
Screeching Weasel
Weaselmania
(Fat Wreck Chords, 2005)
If you listen to punk and you don’t listen to Screeching Weasel, you may want to re-evaluate your life. Thanks to Fat Wreck Chords, though, instead of wallowing in the mire of your sorry punk record collection, missing all those classics from the late eighties and early nineties, you can pick up this compilation of 34 tracks. There’s a bit from each of Screeching Weasel’s albums represented here. All the dumb-fk-punk you could possibly ever want is here including the ridiculous and harrowing “I Wanna Be a Homosexual.” Other Lookout! era hits crop up on Weaselmania as well. And if nothing else Mike Dirnt, of Green Day fame, fills in on bass for a few tracks. Shock the middle class. Take it up your punk rock ass. Don’t sleep, consumerize.
